Hell's Uprising
by Magikoopa981
Summary: Sarasaland is a kingdom in hell, a place under the shadow of an evil tyrant leading a corrupted government. Revolution is inevitable, and so a group of five will band together to raise an army and make history.(CH 4: Once you get to know someone you can start to feel if they're a threat to you or not. If you choose to base everything off of a first impression, you will die.)
1. Chapter One: In The Beginning

**Hell's Uprising**

Chapter One: In The Beginning

It was still a few days before it all begins. It was a nice, warm night, around eleven PM- my favorite kind of day. That's how it is for the Birabuto region of Sarasaland: blistering hot during the day, but the perfect temperature at night. If it wasn't for their work schedules, I'm sure most people who lived here would just sleep during the day and hang out during the night, do whatever they do for fun. Unfortunately, the other regions of Sarasaland aren't like this, and we gotta keep up with their schedule. Birabuto definitely isn't a place of influence.

But you'd better believe it's the funnest place in Sarasaland. The people who can stay awake during both the day and the night and those who can't or don't need work participate in night parties. You should see the kind of crazy places I've been to. But I digress, that doesn't have too much to do with what happened that night, and soon enough I wouldn't be doing much partying of any kind. That night I was out looking for more Redroll, since I was almost out. Redroll is this fine red powder that keeps you awake. If you ain't used to it and you use too much of it it can be nasty dangerous and make you absolutely cuckoo, but if you can handle it, it's like the way better version of coffee. Me an' some of my friends have worked with it for a long time, and we've found the perfect balance of intake to stay awake all day _and _all night, and not miss anything.

Redroll could be tough to get, though. See, like tonight: I had been relying on my nyololin dealer Eleme to sell me some, but she ended up getting a nasty job from a nasty crowd, and by the time I'd find out about it in a few days it'd all be way too late: I'd be straight in the line of fire of this whole crazy series of events. I spose' it couldn't be helped though; there's a good chance that just by meeting Eleme I was destined to walk the path that I do. Plus, there's another acquaintance of mind that'd be just as much to "blame" for what was to come.

Anyway, without my usual lead for a hit, I was forced to go beg off another of my friends, Zymech. She's an engineer, constantly building and tinkering with all kinds of stuff I can't understand. For instance, two months ago she had spent a week cooped up in her little work area compacting some metal and crossing some wires or something (I have no idea), only to come out with this freakin' coffee machine. I couldn't help myself from smirkin' so she gave me a cup. Damn, let me tell you, that was the finest cup of coffee I had ever had. Too bad when I came back the next day for more of that good stuff she had already recycled the parts of the machine to start work on something new. That's just how it is with her: she's always recycling parts, making better and better inventions…at least most of the time.

It was late but I knew she'd be awake. She was always awake since she took way more Redroll than I could handle. I can't remember the last time I'd ever seen a hint of her sleeping. Kind of scares me, really, but I can't argue against it. She's gotta work just as much as the rest of us do during the day, and she's also constantly tinkering with stuff.

I got to her place and knocked on the door. About ten seconds later she opened up and stared unevenly at me.

"Rough day, Z?" I asked, jokingly. If you lived in Birabuto, every day was rough.

"I'm going to kill Sandolz." She said angrily. She pushed the door open for me and headed back inside her small hut. I followed after and shut the door behind me. "That bastard cut off twenty-five percent of my pay for the day just for arriving ten minutes late." She continued. She grabbed a wrench and went to work on some bizarre hunk of metal.

I should probably explain more about Zymech. She's a light-orange yoshi who left the Mushroom Kingdom after their species was exiled six years ago. Most yoshi's headed back to their native land of Yoshi's Island, but Zymech and her mother came to Sarasaland to live with her father who had been living here for a long time under some vague governmental contract. Then life took a dive for her. She came to Birabuto where her dad was supposed to be, but she couldn't find a trace of him despite getting a letter from 'im just a year back. Her mother got caught up in some bad activity while looking for the guy and ended up getting killed by a nasty gang of weirdos from the west. I can relate. Zymech settled down here and began trying to live some kinda normal life while also working on her endless passion for inventions. She even changed her name in order to avoid direct connection to her father, and started living in the slums of Shinar to hide her moderate wealth. We ended up meeting a few years after that, but I've gone on enough already.

"Sandolz, huh?" I crossed my arms and leaned up against the wall of the hut. Much of the inside was made of sturdy tin, a fitting motif for an inventor's place. "I think I worked under him once. Dick kept spitting sunflower seeds at our backs as we worked." In Birabuto most work involves random physical labor jobs. Every day you'd be doing something different with a different manager.

"That's him." Z grimaced. She grabbed a soldering iron and began vaguely attacking the metal mass in the center of the room with it. "I swear I get him every other time."

"Damn." I offered apologetically.

Z put down the iron and turned to me. Here we go. "Alright, enough crap, Lukas. What are you here for? I know if you had an option you'd be clubbing right now, not bumming around here. I can read it all over your mask."

She was right, of course. We were friends, but watching her mess around with wiring for a few hours was not my cup of tea.

"Wait a second. You look tired." She said before I could respond. "You're out of Redroll, aren't you? And I bet Eleme is out of town, isn't she? You want some of my stash."

"Yeah, you got me." I threw my arms up sarcastically. "Listen, I'll pay you the same I pay Eleme. I know you've got plenty, you can spare me a bit." I don't know from whom Z got her supply, but I knew that they sold in crazy bulk. Probably more than I could afford.

"Yeah, yeah, I can spare you a bit. Calm down." She turned the wrench she was holding roughly, securing a bolt into place. A loud beeping sound exploded out, and I jumped ten feet. Z chuckled as she pushed her wheeled stool back and rolled over to another cabinet where the Redroll was stored.

"What are you building, anyway?" I took a bit of a closer look at the thing she had been working on. As I mentioned before, at first glance it was a large hunk of metal, but on this new look I noticed all sorts of intricate stuff lining the mass and going inside of it. Actually, the thing almost seemed to have a face…! "This thing looks a little like a mekabon." The vague shape of it anyway.

Z had begun digging in her cabinet for a bag of Redroll by the time I made my observation. It made her stop and turn back to stare at me. "You think it looks like a mekabon?"

"Yeah, sure. Look, there's like the head here, and there's kind of these arms…" I touched the odd limbs that were sticking out of it. "There's not really any legs yet, but…"

"Legs were the next step." Z said worriedly. She found the bag she was looking for and brought it back over. "Ten red coins."

"Ten red coins? You're killing me, Z. How about seven?"

"Nine."

"Eight." I finished predictably. She scowled and I gave her the coins. She handed me the bag. "What's the problem? You seem miffed that I think this thing looks like a mekabon."

Shoot…do you know what mekabons are? They're a mechanical species living here in Sarasaland. They ain't very smart and they act really weird sometimes (they call them glitches, I guess?) but they're a favorite soldier for the Sarasaland troops. Apparently they can't feel anything, and don't think much so they're perfect for battle. Sometimes I get an odd sense of something from their cold eyes, though. Makes a guy wonder what the heck they really are. There's nothing else like em' except the bob-ombs in the southeast kingdoms.

"It's not a mekabon." Z insisted. "It's a new thing."

She seemed pretty troubled. I didn't really know at the time what was happening there. Once again, by the time I found out, things were…well, actually, I suppose that I found out at exactly the right time.

"Well, alright, if you say so." I shrugged. I wasn't really thinking about it at the time. Hell, I didn't even really ask her what the thing was supposed to be. I don't think she would've given me a straight answer anyway.

"Alright, you got what you wanted. Time to go." She shooed me away distractedly. She was still bothered by what I had said and it was making her look strangely at her invention.

"Love ya, Z." I grinned wily and gave her a bear hug.

"Get off!" She snapped. She shoved me away. I fell back, laughing a bit. Z glared at me.

"Alright, well, see ya later Z!" I made a small kind of half-wave and headed for the door.

"See you!" Z called back, a bit more cheerfully than her demeanor had let on. I feel bad looking back at it now: next time I saw her I'd be dragging her kicking and punching into the mess that Eleme and John got me into.

Now that I had the Redroll I needed I was set to go to the new dive I had heard about. I opened the bag and inhaled a small amount: I figured it'd last me the next seven hours. As I mentioned earlier, the stuff's great, but you gotta be careful. Too much and you're an addicted, mindless, drooling wreck.

It wasn't too far of a walk to the place John had told me about. The town I live in, Shinar, is a really scrunched up place in that most of the different "districts"- if you wanna call em' that- are all really close together. I mean, the whole town is about two square miles, and it has a slummy district (used fondly, mind you, it's where Z and I live), a wealthy district, a kind of middle-class district, and a political district. The slummy district takes up the most space (this is Birabuto after all) while the other three are basically equal size-wise. Point is I was at this new place in forty minutes. It wasn't really a new location, but it was new for me. If I hadn't been here yet it must've been a really low-down place.

So I was very surprised when the clown guarding the front door asked me for an ID.

"You're kiddin', right?" My eyebrows rose.

"If you not eighteen or up…" The big dumb nokonoko paused, trying to remember what he was supposed to say next. "…you don't come in."

"Yeah yeah…" I grabbed around in my robe pockets and found what I was looking for. I handed the giant stone head my work ID. "Here. I'm nineteen. See this number here? That's when I was born."

"Yes. Yes. I see." The nokonoko rubbed his chin. It made a kind of an annoying sound. "You can go in."

"Thank you." I took my ID back and headed in. I had teased the bouncer about his ability to read the year, but I wasn't going to go much farther than that: nokonoko's were crazy strong and I honestly felt sorry for their depressing simplicity.

Since the place had a bouncer I had been expecting to find out this was some kind of secret super-fancy club, where only those "in-the-know" went. I mean, it was in the middle-class district, so it couldn't be too terrible…

But no, it was pretty awful. Just coming in I arrived on a balcony that overlooked the whole room, and so I could see all of the trashiness straight off the bat. First, the room was dim, and not in a jazzy way- there were broken light bulbs all over the ceiling. This place would be grossly bright if it wasn't broken down. Second, the place smelled like melted plastic soaked in gasoline- the smell of bad alcohol. You might not think that's the case, but everything's on the lower side in Birabuto, and when you get to the lower side of alcohol you get the delightful smell of plastic an' gasoline. Third, the place was just plain dirty. There was garbage everywhere and visible sand and muck on the floor. I know we live in the desert region of Sarasaland but Eld you gotta at least keep up some standards with this stuff.

All in all, it was one of the better places I'd been to.

There was John, waving me over. I sighed and made my way down the unpleasantly sloped steps, making sure not to slip, fall, and die.

"You found quite the place this time." Just as I walked up to the table I stepped in something sticky. I almost tripped as my right foot continued forward and my left stayed stuck in place. "Aw Eldstar." I grabbed the table with some force, nearly knocking over John's drink.

"Lukas, you always know the best way to make an entrance." John finished his drink as I struggled to get my left foot unstuck from the floor.

John's my closest friend and maybe one of five humans I've ever seen. We've known each other since we were seven, way back when my dad was alive, and in the years we've developed a kind of brotherly bond. It's the kind of thing that's helped us to survive: if you live in Sarasaland, or at least, Birabuto, you need someone who has your back. A lot of my friends have died for one reason or the other over the years: sometimes from a random outbreak of violence, but usually something to do with the government- the Queen's reign is just about as riddled with corruption as it gets. Point is, if you've got a brother of some kind, you've got a much better chance of surviving.

"Screw you." I finally unlatched myself from the floor and managed to make a decent landing into the messily pulled-out chair. "What the hell is with this place?" I almost looked under my shoe to see what I had stepped in but decided against it.

"What? Are you tired of our 'quest to try every bar in Shinar'?" He was quoting me.

"Maybe. Damn. Where's the waitress?"

"There are no waitresses. You will have to walk up to the bar." John explained. Cool and collected as always, to my irritation.

"Great. I just sat down." I complained. I got up again and walked over to the bartender who was a koopa with an eye patch. Amazing.

"What'll it be?" He asked gruffly.

I really wanted to ask if he was a pirate. "You got hard Marine Pops?" I wasn't going to challenge him with anything too hard, considering the state of his establishment.

"Yeah." He muttered. "Just a sec'". He started pouring and mixing. I turned back to look over the bar and at some of the other patrons. It seemed everyone there was raggedy, save for me and John. Then again, I hadn't looked in any mirrors recently…

I heard the familiar clunk of a glass being set down. I paid the pirate koopa and headed back to the table, the combined payment to Z and the payment for the drink bringing a newfound lightness to my coin bag. It bothered me a little. Oh well, that's just how it was- living from payment to payment. Tomorrow I'd get the money I'd need to live again.

"You look a bit melancholic." John stared at me suspiciously. "Have you read something sad recently?"

"I look melancholic? What the hell are you talking about?" I took a big swig of the Marine Pop. Aw Eld, what did the guy put in it? I started coughing.

"I don't know…your cloak looks a little droopier than usual…your eye holes are a little more curved…" He shrugged.

"I'm not sad at all." I frowned. I lowered my voice. "In fact, I've actually been reading this rather humorous Beanbean novel recently." According to the Queen's law it was illegal to purchase or own books from the nearby Beanbean Kingdom and Jewelry Land. The growing animosity between those countries and ours had caused her to completely shut down trading.

"Oh, really?" John perked up a little. "_They_ got another one?"

"Yep. That's why you should come back." You may not be thinking it because of the way I've been telling this, but John and I consider ourselves intellectuals- at least, compared to most of the people living here in Birabuto. I'm a big reader: I've read just about every novel I've been able to get my hands on. John, meanwhile, is obsessed with history. I don't know anyone who knows more than him about the history of Sarasaland and probably the entire known world. Feel free to disagree about me being smart, but you can't deny all of the things John's learned. It's nuts. I'd prove it, but we didn't really talk about history that night, and I've got a story to tell here.

We were about to start making it in a few days anyway.

Because of our mutual love of reading (in one form or another), we ended up getting connected with an underground group of scholars based here in Shinar that called themselves the Collegiate. They smuggle books in from other countries and keep them in a secret library. Because of its reach into other lands it's a lot bigger than any legal libraries, but it takes a while to get new books in. John and I use to often meet with the other learned people there regularly, but John had stopped going a while ago. He had begun to participate in a group he'd only explain to me as the "Organization". Ominous as hell even before I found out what was really going on with it.

"You know I'm too busy to come back." John said quietly. "In fact, that's actually why I picked this place to come to tonight."

"What?" I asked confusedly.

""This place…is controlled by the Organization, so it is the safest place in Shinar to tell you this." John glanced around the bar. "The Organization has begun picking up the pace regarding work recently. I am going to be leaving for a while."

I suddenly felt like everyone in the room was staring at me and John. Maybe they were, I don't know, I sure as hell didn't look around. "John…what are you talking about?"

"Everything is speeding up. Something may happen soon. We might be able to get somewhere."

Let me tell you what I knew about the Organization at that point: basically nothing. John joined about half a year ago under mysterious circumstances. I've asked him multiple times about joining but he's told me again and again that there are no "open spaces". His secretive crap with it made me angry for a time, but there was nothing to really do about it.

"Could you use any help?" I asked tiredly. I thought I already knew the answer.

"Maybe." John tapped his fingers on the table. "There is a good possibility."

Oh, well actually, I didn't know the answer. I really wasn't expecting any kind of a 'yes' answer.

"But if that does happen…" John looked at me seriously. "I am going to ask you suddenly, and you are going to have to drop everything to help."

Drop everything? What did that mean? Go off and help this "Organization" for a few days, maybe weeks? I still didn't even know what it was about. But that wasn't the important thing: this was a matter of trust and brotherhood. With John, of course, but as I thought more about it I realized that joining this Organization could have massive benefits: the possible protection of an entire group.

"No problem." I replied just as seriously as he had asked. "I've been trying to help you with that stuff forever, haven't I?"

John nodded. An odd clicking sound came from somewhere and he looked up at the ceiling slowly. I hesitantly followed suit to see what he was looking at, but there was only the dirty stained ceiling. Still, John pushed back from the table and stood, putting on his coat.

"Are you seriously going already?" I asked.

"Sorry, I have business." He pushed his right hand through his scraggly, dark black hair and then pulled a small book out of his coat pocket. He placed it on the table. "I know you usually only read novels but I highly recommend this."

The cover was orange and read 'Daisy', with no author. It was hardback but falling apart- from use not from age.

"Pocket it as deep as you can before you leave." John's eyes narrowed. "Consider it smuggled."

Daisy. "Is this…?"

"Do not even say it." John shook his head. "Just read the book." He was speaking rather formally. I think he was trying to avoid getting even a little choked up, though I didn't realize that at the time. I didn't know what exactly he was doing in the Organization and how fully he had to accept the possibility of a fatal end. "Farewell."

"Good…bye…?" I could barely get out before John was gone. He had practically run up the stairs and out of the joint. I sighed and headed out as well. I had no reason to stay in that nasty place any longer. In fact, I was sick of visiting these trashy bars- I already knew the best in town. No reason to keep visiting the terrible ones.

Yes, I was unaware of it, but that night would be my last night feeling relaxed and mostly safe. You could never feel totally safe living in Sarasaland but you could feel pretty safe. The next few days would be working days where I'd sleep during the night, and then that certain day I've been hinting at would come.

In just a few days where I went to get a drink would be the least of my problems. In just a few days the trouble that would kick everything off would hit me, and many of the subsequent events would pull from there, like quicksand falling into a hole faster and faster. Before much longer I'd be part of an army going up against the Queen and the forces of Sarasaland, and fighting for my life- as well as being trusted with others.

* * *

******So as Lukas implies, you can kind of consider this a prologue to the actual story. Most of the protagonists are introduced here or at least mentioned. Let me know if you think this is interesting so far, and thank you for reading!**


	2. Chapter Two: The Serpent's Gift

Chapter Two: The Serpent's Gift

Over the next few days I read the book titled "Daisy" and learned all sorts of awful things- vague accounts of terrible happenings related to the Queen of Sarasaland. I think I could say it was honestly the worst thing I'd ever read.

I knew the government wasn't too great (As I've said earlier, the Queen's reign is absolutely riddled with corruption) but the idea that the Queen was _this _deranged, _this _horrifying…I dismissed it as fiction at first thought, and then I settled on it bein' some kind of weird propaganda. But then, I had to ask, whose propaganda was it? The Organization that John was a member of? If so, did he give it to me because he believed this craziness? I would have to talk to him some more before I could believe any of it- save for some public events the book mentioned that I had personally witnessed.

Reading the book especially reminded me of a conversation I had had with John about a week before I had found out that he had joined the "Organization". This was about a year back. John had become obsessed over the question of why a human royal family, humans being such a rare species, ruled over both Sarasaland and the Mushroom Kingdom while the other kingdoms were represented by their most populous members: Koopa Kingdom = Koopas (although weirdly mutated ones), Beanbean Kingdom = Beans, Tribal Lands = Humans, and Jewelry Land = Shies (it was formally known as Subcon, did you know?).

I was drinkin' way too much, looking around the latest place we had found and trying to forget where I was, and when I was, and why I was.

"Lukas…" John began seriously. He too was drunk though. "Have you ever thought about why…humans rule Sarasaland and the Mushroom Kingdom?"

"Of course I have." I shrugged. "Hasn't everyone?" I reached around for my drink but couldn't find it. I frowned dramatically. I probably looked like one of those theatre masks.

"Well, what do you think, then?" He seemed seriously troubled. I was too wasted to notice until (as you can guess) I looked back on it later.

"I don't know. It's the…it's a thing you don't talk about." It really wasn't. The Queen had issued a proclamation that it was as simple a matter as that humans had founded both Sarasaland and the Mushroom Kingdom…despite the fact that some archeological digs had come up with old nyololin and nokonoko crafts (about 1500 years old) while human crafts were only dated to about 1000 years back. Of course, those crafts had fallen victim to an 'accidental' fire a few weeks after their finding, so who could say for sure anymore…

"Right. A thing you are not supposed to discuss…" John folded his hands and glared at a nearby wall. If you seriously and loudly questioned one of the Queen's proclamations you'd disappear very quickly. Back then it was just another thing I accepted as a part of life. But John wasn't so ready to accept it. Thanks John- I never would have woken up to just how bad our world was if it wasn't for you.

But enough with flashbacks within flashbacks. After John gave me the book titled 'Daisy' thoughts stirred up by it ran through my mind over the following three days. My subconscious self wasted time with the provided information: I began to treat the book as a novel or a work of fiction, and began to pry it apart based as one, rather than a historical account. Instead of wondering who could've discovered such deep insight on the Queen's hidden activities, I began to judge the book on its characters, the plot, the themes…my literary-minded self was engorging on the thing.

It wasn't like I had shut my brain off, though. I hid that book better than any of my most prized possessions (of which there were few). If someone saw it (with its flashing-lights title) I'd be in gigantic, treasonous trouble. The Queen had made it a law that if you had any written works that didn't consistently praise her you'd get a death sentence- and if there was ever a book that didn't praise her it would be the simple-titled "Daisy".

I read about an hour-and-a-half's worth a night, as much as I could before I collapsed from the day's exhaustion. I ended up getting that kumo (it's a species kinda like a giant spider) jerk Sandolz as my manager, and like usual he worked his subordinates to the brink of breaking down. If I took some Redroll I could've stayed up and read all night but I really didn't want to: I couldn't take too much of that book at a time, its foul contents were mentally exhausting to take in. That's a big part of why I was sure it was propagandized fiction. Heck, I still can't say that most of it wasn't- as far as I know there's no way to prove most of it anymore.

I had gotten about halfway through the book when the fated day rolled around. That day I hid the book in a secret paneling located underneath my crappy bed and then got ready for work. That day I was working in the Uruk Vortex just south of Shinar. The vortex part refers to the fun wind blasts that endlessly toss sand about. Working there normally was one of life's worst experiences, but fortunately for me I had managed to, uh, nab some special equipment a few months back that would protect my face against the sand. Best part was that the mask I had to wear looked just like my face, and since no one can see worth a damn in the sand, no one could really tell that I was wearing an oversized, er, mask.

When that fated day came the only real ominous rumbling I got before my life was launched from a catapult was the absence of Sandolz from the workforce. We had a replacement manager arrive who explained that he had merely been ordered by an even higher-up superior to show up today in lieu of our hated manager. The reason for Sandolz's disappearance wasn't directly connected to what was going to happen after I left work that day but it _was_ going to end up screwing me over in an entirely different manner that tied into my steps towards suddenly being the leader of a small army. Aw hell, just saying this is making me feel dizzy.

So my shift ends eight hours later and I come out as happy as you can be after having to spend my day searching for oil in a miserable sandy wilderness. I make it to within one block away from my dumpy apartment building before a car that had been waiting nearby flies out and screeches to a halt next to me. I'm so shocked at just seeing an actual, real life _car_ that I don't have time to react before two pionpis rush out, punch me in the face, and then toss me into the back of the car while I'm semi-knocked out. I hear the door slam and the screech of tires before I'm able to open my eyes and see Eleme looking down at me, her currently worried face presented along with the one sharp tooth that was always sticking down and out of her mouth.

Eleme's a nyololin, one of the snake people of Sarasaland. Nyololin's are technically a minority in Sarasaland but I see them everywhere since I live in Birabuto which is apparently the minority region of the kingdom. Eleme's been my Redroll dealer for a few years now and she's always been very dependable: her price has rarely risen, and she's always had stock available, save for some seldom "trips" she would take. Other than that I didn't know her too well.

"Wha…? Eleme…?" I mumbled up at her.

"I'm sorry…" She said sadly. That rang some loud bells that helped me to wake up.

"Wha-? What are you sorry for?" I sat bolt upright, my back going up against the car door that I had just been thrown through. I turned around and looked out the window at the sandy streets that passed by with a speed I was unfamiliar with. The car had to have been outfitted with some special kind of tires to deal with the wavy sand beneath.

"This shouldn't take too long...just a few days, probably…" She replied just as sadly as before, accompanied with a sigh.

"What…what shouldn't take a few days? Eleme, you're not speakin' in full sentences here." Next I turned to the front of the car. We were completely segmented off from it save for a metal grill made for speaking-through. I used it. "Hey! HEY! What's…"

"Shut up!" Someone snapped back surprisingly fast. "You'll get your assignment when we get there."

Assignment? What was this? This sounded like it had something to do with John's Organization, but…Eleme didn't have anything to do with that, did she?

"Eleme, what is going on?" I hissed.

"You, you're going to have to…" She sighed again. "It'll be quick. You just need to…you just need to help us with something."

"Help who? You're part of the Organization?" I couldn't believe this. I bet everyone I knew was part of the Organization, and I was the only person who had no idea. (Of course, that was just my literary side whispering nonsense into my ears).

"Organization?" Eleme winced a bit confusedly. "If you mean the 'ST…'"

"NOT ANOTHER SYLLABLE!" The driver of the car shouted…or maybe it was the guy sitting next to the driver- there had definitely been two pionpis that had come and knocked me out. Following the orders me an' Eleme sat in silence for the rest of the time, awkwardly glancing over at each other every once in a while. I tried opening the door to the car in silence but it was locked- probably for the best now that I'm looking back from a slightly calmer (if much more dangerous) part of my life. If the door had been unlocked I would've just fallen out into the road at whatever speed the car was going at and then would've just been picked up again anyway.

It took about half-an-hour to get where we were going. I spent the time trying to piece together what was happening. As far as I could tell Eleme probably wasn't involved with the organization…whatever group was controlling this had the first initials of S and T. I wasn't sure who that could be, probably cause' I had gotten out of gang activities about four years ago and had never looked back. New gangs could pop up and die off within weeks- "Eleme's group" as I thought of it during that car ride, could've been created recently…or maybe I just hadn't heard of them.

But what did they want with me? Well, that was the big question, wasn't it? I should've seen the answer coming from a mile away.

When we reached our destination two miles outside of Shinar the two pionpis forced me and Eleme out of the car. They kept swords at the back of our heads and led us over to a crumbling and crummy shack (one had to wonder what wasn't crumbling and crummy in Birabuto). I was ordered to take the lead of our little band and go into the shack first.

This was when I took my chance: I snapped my head forward violently, releasing two kunai stored behind my mask to fall out through my eyeholes. I caught them, just like I was still eleven, then turned quickly, arching my right arm out to stab through the bigger pionpi's stomach and then made a quick spinning motion to move around the collapsing body and slice through the second pionpi's neck.

Well, I really really wish that was what had happened. Instead when the kunai fell through my eyeholes I fumbled to catch them and only managed to grab one of them. The pionpi behind me immediately knew what I was doing and brought the hilt of his sword down against the back of my head, knocking me out completely. I had escaped the gang life but by consequence I had become _too _soft.

"We know who you are, Kuneyes Koden." The larger pionpi smirked down at me as I drifted off. Good god did I hate that name.

I woke up tied to a chair and getting stared down by a fly, another one of the species here in Sarasaland (they're basically giant flies, can you believe it?). He was a really nasty lookin' guy with a long tongue that seemed to be eternally hanging out of his mouth. If you're picturing this right you should probably be grossed out right now.

"Hey there." He sneered, like there was something funny on my face.

"How long I have I been out?" I asked groggily, getting straight to business. Even after I had tried to kill one of my kidnappers I still hadn't been killed myself which meant they must have been planning to keep me alive…for something.

"Well, if I had to guess, I would say about twenty-five minutes." The fly smacked his lips and continued staring at me. It made me wonder if the guy was a cannibal or something idiotic like that.

"Have you been staring at me this whole time?" I had to ask.

"I was just waiting for you to wake up." The fly rubbed his front legs together. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Kuneyes Koden."

"Don't call me that." I squinted and moved my head around a bit. My face felt oddly weightless without my weapons stored behind it. I wondered where they were. Oh, and hey- there was Eleme, curled up in another chair nearby and still looking depressed. Looked like she didn't have the privilege of getting tied up. She noticed my looking at her and she smiled apologetically at me. I felt a strong urge to strangle her. Well…then again, could you strangle a nyololin? That's a great question.

"What should I call you then?" The fly shifted a bit in his own chair. "Oh, wait, how rude of me. I should introduce myself first." Yes, you should. Then I'll know how much trouble I'm in. "You can call me 'S'." A pseudonym- wonderful. And he and his group here already knew my full name. "And…just to make sure…you are Lukas Koden, right?" He glanced over at Eleme, that damn creepy look on his face increasing in intensity.

This S guy was just having fun or something- after my little stunt earlier there was no way he needed further confirmation on who I was. Kuneyes Koden- that awful nickname had spread during my gang years. The pun was obvious and yet my opponents were still surprised again and again when my kunai dropped out of my face and was planted in theirs. Anyway, there was no point in denying it. They had dragged me here because of who I was- if I wasn't Lukas Koden I had the feeling I'd be dead very quickly.

"Yup, that's me." I admitted sardonically, the tone of my voice referencing myself and the S character sitting across from me.

"Excellent!" Some of the shininess left S' eyes. "You've been out of the game for a while now, haven't you? Ardo told me about your…little slip-up. It must've been very embarrassing. Hehehe." He chuckled lightly but roughly, each 'he' a strong syllable. It was the most annoying laugh I had ever encountered.

Ardo, huh? I had the feeling that that was the name of the bigger pionpi that I had aimed my attack for. He did seem to be more like the type to be second-in-command, directly reporting to the boss. Interesting how S was comfortable with namedropping his underlings but not himself- well, less interesting and more scummy.

"But," S stopped laughing abruptly. "Your reputation is the reason you're here." He pointed a thin front leg at Eleme. I turned slowly to glare at her. "Eleme here told me all about where to find you."

Well of course that was how she was involved in all of this, but hearing it directly heated my blood up. Now I wasn't sure which _why _I wanted to ask first: why Eleme had sold me out like this or why some gang wanted me years after I was out. Fortunately for my angry curiosity and unfortunately for my near future, S was happy to tell me.

"Well, I've had my fun being mysterious." S shifted his tongue to hang out of the other side of his mouth. "I guess we'll get to business."

"Yes. Let's." I gritted my teeth. I could feel an aura of endless guiltiness floating over from where Eleme was.

"Long story short, my associates and I of the STA have lost a shipment to one of the CBC," (Chai Bio Cell, the government's anti-bioterrorism squad) "a shipment that is worth upward of a million coins."

A _million _coins?! In all my years on the streets I had never been in the position to work with that kind of money. My curiosity about who the 'STA' was skyrocketed. I began to try to remember where I had heard the acronym before.

"Now my associates and I were planning to deal with this problem ourselves, but something big is going down in Jewelry Land and many of them have found themselves busy." S shrugged with his thin fly legs. "So I decided to pull in a debt. El…" S' eyes shined more brightly and he looked over at Eleme again. I saw her coil more tightly out of the corner of my vision. "…owes me quite a bit of money. A LOT of money." Drool started to drip out of his mouth and down his tongue.

Wait…STA, STA, it was coming back to me…

"You know that El works for us, right?" S turned back to me, still drooling. "She's the one that sells you your candy. You know what I'm talking about, right? Hehehe. And she gets it from us- but she hasn't been giving us all of the money that she owes us, so now…she is on the _chopping block_." He said the last two words with tangible relish. I resisted shivering. S laughed again. I wanted out of there.

"And why am I involved in this?" I said quietly.

"Yes, great question." S clapped soundlessly. His legs were too thin to make any noise. "I _like_ Eleme, so I found that the best way for her to pay me off was to have her retrieve the product for me. But, it will be a difficult job, and she'll need someone experienced…"

STA: it hit me. The Starm Transportation Alliance: a group that mainly worked with the drug Starm and moved it wherever they sold it, as the name suggested. Apparently they also worked with Redroll (my stuff) which was illegal like Starm but was way, way, way less dangerous.

Maybe you think I'm being hypocritical right now but trust me- Redroll is absolutely NOTHING like Starm. Redroll has its dangers, I freely admit it, and if you use it wrong, you can become a bit crazy. But Starm…Starm is as bad as it gets. It's a yellow powder, in comparison to the red of Redroll, and with one whiff- this is what I've heard and read many times- you will be driven entirely, murderously insane. Instantly, in a snap- you even get a fun dose of physical mutations with it. I know, it sounds like bull, but the stuff is no joke. It'll give you a feeling beyond any other in the world that apparently even sticks with you after you recover from the effects…but the price is absolute slaughter. If it gets in the wrong hands, which is absolutely anyone who wants to use it, hundreds of people can die.

The STA, as an underground group, was formed specifically to transport the stuff. They're practically monsters selling it. The only thing that prevents some kind of a national tragedy is the small doses the STA sells with. The more Starm you take the stronger and more psychotic you become. At least with small doses only a few people are killed…

"I am _not _helping you get _Starm_." I spat. So I had moved Redroll in my younger years- but that was nothing. Most of the people around here knew how to use it correctly. Moving Starm was absolute terrorism.

"Starm? Who said anything about Starm?" S moved his tongue to the other side of his mouth again, ladling a large globber of drool onto the ground. "It's simply a shipment. Besides, even if it was Starm, you have no choice in this matter. You _will_ be helping us. I had Eleme point you out because you've got quite the reputation in Shinar and, as I said, she'll need some help."

"So you're dragging me into this just because I bought from the person who screwed _you _over?" I growled.

"And because you're the deadliest person I have access to. Yes." His tongue seemed to be drying. "You're going to have to break into a CBC facility and get the product back. Certain actions may be necessary."

Hell no. I was done with being hired for this illegal crap, never mind being downright forced to do it. "And what makes you think I'm going to go along with this little mission and not bail out the moment you send me off to it?"

"Oh, don't worry about that, you'll have a third member in your little party: Ardo, a faithful member of the STA." The big pionpi. Goody, I'd get to work with the guy who had abducted me and knocked me out twice. "Also, I will be paying you a handsome sum of 100,000 coins once the job is finished." You better believe my ears pricked up at that.

One hundred thousand coins? My first assumption was that he was lying, but one look at his creepy face told me he wasn't. One hundred thousand coins…with that kind of money I'd be the king of Birabuto, I could move to Chai, get really educated, and live well for the rest of my life. 100,000 coins…

"I'll let you think over it tonight." S clacked his pincers and the looming door that had stood behind him opened up.

Eleme and I were 'escorted' out by Ardo and taken to a small room containing two rusty metal beds. We were pushed in, he slammed the door shut, and I heard the familiar sound of the door being bolted shut, just as I do every night back home. But, what am I thinking this entire time? Am I thinking about how I'm being forced to commit serious crimes again even though I swore myself out of them? Am I thinking about why this S guy is having me do a hardcore mission like this despite the fact that I was trash at fighting now? Perhaps I am thinking about what happened to my kunai? Or wait, maybe I was thinking about the fact that this mission involved infiltrating a government base: a terrible idea any day of the week.

But no, can you guess what I was thinking about first and foremost? I'll give you a hint: I was thinking about 100,000 of them. As I'm sitting on that rusty little bed I am technically thinkin' about all of that other stuff I just mentioned…but I'm thinking about all of em' as small problems to jump over in order to get that money. I mean, I definitely have the confirmation now that I won't be stealing Starm, right? That's what S said. And sneaking into a CBC base wouldn't be too difficult. If it was out here in Birabuto it'd be falling apart just like anything else in this region.

"Lukas…" A familiar voice whimpered near me, shaking me out of my calculations. It was Eleme, looking just as troubled as she had been since I had been abducted. "I'm sorry! They were going to kill me if I didn't…cooperate." She was being sincere. We hardly knew each other yet she sincerely felt bad about pulling me into this. It touched me- even though at the time my stupid and greedy side was feeling somewhat grateful to her.

"It's fine." I lied back on the bed and felt a rusty spring poke up at me. "It's just another job. We'll get through it, you'll pay your debts off, and I'll get my payment." Money money…maybe I was just really tired that night and it took an okay night's sleep to clear my head and remind me how dangerous the situation was.

Eleme stayed silent after that. I don't know if she sensed my greed and was disgusted, or if it was just a matter of guilt. I've never been too good at reading people. My own response was to try to sleep, even with a rusty spiral of metal being driven up into my back. It was bullet bill black in that room anyway, so there was nothing else to do.

So it was that Eleme had given me a gift, an indirect gift of knowledge that John had and would give me further pieces of as well. It was being held here that would lead to the moments when I would gain the realization and strength to fight.

* * *

**Author's Notes: ****'Shie' is the proper species name for shy guys with 'Shies' being a plural form of it. Shy guys, the term used in the Mushroom Kingdom, is actually considered to be a slightly rude name.**


	3. Chapter Three: Fruits Of Knowledge

**Happy Mario Kart 8 Day!**

Chapter Three: Fruits Of Knowledge

The "bed"- and I put bed in quotes- was much thinner than my bed back in my home sweet home so I had the pleasure of waking up by rolling out of the thing at some unearthly hour in the morning. The floor was nice and dirty and I had inhaled a thick layer of dust before I realized and remembered where exactly I was.

"Gddmerphsiltz…" I mumbled, or something to that effect. I don't remember exactly what my tired mind was outputting that soon after waking up. Whatever I said probably would've sounded like gibberish to anyone else who would've happened to hear it anyway.

This kinda behavior probably sounds pretty funny, since I just described in the last chapter that I used to play a very serious game of crime back in my younger days. Me: master of stabbing people with small knives at the age of eleven- sounds brutal, doesn't it? But hey, in my defense, it's not like the killing was my main job. Hell, it was _never _my job- it's just if things got hot and heavy I knew how to do what I did. And it's not like I enjoyed it…it was just another part of surviving on the streets of Birabuto. And I was glad to leave that life behind- it felt like a retirement: a retirement into a better life.

So as I was thinking about nothing and just deciding to get off of the dustiest floor in the sandiest place in the world, the door to the cell I had slept in slammed open and a looming figure walked into the doorway.

"Gud. You are awake, Koden." It was the gruff and deep voice of a pionpi. The sound finally slapped me awake and I stumbled off of the floor, trying to jump to the defensive. I stumbled a bit and fell back against the bed I had just fallen off from, pushing it back with an extremely unpleasant screech. Man, I was on a roll. Literally.

Oh, right- I remembered. I had been captured by the STA (Starm Transport Agency), and was now being forced into their Starm-stealing operation. And this bozo that had just come in was…one of my new "business partners", wasn't it? Yup, once I had a good look at him, I remembered and recognized: it was Ardo, the big pionpi that had knocked me out one-and-a-half times yesterday.

"S vants to talk." Ardo said simply. He turned right around and walked out of the room. He was incredibly straightforward. He reminded me of some of the types I had worked with- and against- back in the streets of Shinar. It was one way to survive: take and follow orders simply and without a thought. I tried that out for a while and couldn't stand it. Ended up fighting down a more dangerous path and managed to grab a bigger reward in the end, including the rare chance of escaping the gang life.

…And yet here I was, taking orders from 'S'. And about to break into a government base.

Whoa. The actuality of the situation was finally hitting me. My greed had worn off enough that I could finally see how absolutely disastrous this whole thing was shaping up to be. The STA were a powerful group, certainly (the fact that they were able to mess around with something over in Jewelry Land was proof enough) but the government? Well, they ruled absolutely everything. And after reading that book that John had given me, (though it still seemed like a fiction written by an incredibly hateful rebel) I felt that I REALLY did not want to mess around with the management.

Nevertheless, after I had checked and found that Eleme was not in her bed I wandered out of our little cell and headed back down the hallway I had walked through the previous night. What a dark and miserable place- I wondered how long it had taken them to build such an extensive underground area. It wasn't that extensive like you'd read about in stories, with miles of passages, but for real life…it was impressive, in the least.

Getting back to the room where I had talked with S was a simple matter of walking down only the widest of halls. Once I had returned S gestured for me to sit down in the same chair that I had been in the previous day. Everyone was in their same places again: I was in my chair (not tied up this time), Eleme was in hers (looking depressed as usual), and S was staring intensely at me from his large chair with his creepy fly eyes. The only exception to this was Ardo, who now stood stiffly against a wall to the left of S, ruining our slightly stretched triangle and creating a distorted quadrilateral.

After glancing around and noting our shape I ended up looking back at S who had remained looking at me this entire time. His eyes were shining again and he was drooling. 'What the hell?' was all I could think. And I was thinking it hard.

"Yo, what's up?" I said somewhat irritably.

"Hey there." S drooled. "Glad you could join us." He slurped his tongue back into his mouth only for it to fall right back out again. Then he didn't say anything else.

I wondered how long Eleme had been sitting here before me. Had S just been staring at her before I had gotten here? She certainly looked uncomfortable and depressed, but then again, she had been like that ever since I had gotten dragged into her mess.

"So…" I started off.

"The mission is today." S slobbered eagerly. I remember thinking that maybe 'S' stood for slobber. "You will help us with your little task and you will get 100,000 coins…as well as your freedom."

100,000 coins…now that I could think clearly about it that was a whole ten percent of the payment for this entire retrieval. Was S honestly planning to pay me ten percent for being such an unimportant part of his overall operation? Consider: The money ultimately made off of the Starm would be from selling it. This was the final product of the entire long process beginning with getting the ingredients for the stuff (a challenge with the CBC, the Chai Bio Cell, constantly looking out for such activity), actually creating the stuff, and then distributing the drug. My part of all of this was being one-third of a team that was fixing a mistake that was never supposed to happen…and I was getting ten percent?

"Right… Very generous." I commented neutrally. S gave me a strange look- perhaps trying to read if I was being sarcastic or not- before speaking again.

"Since most of my associates are away in Jewelry Land, I can afford to be more generous." He blinked one eye. "I feel a bit bad for forcing you into this."

Ha ha ha, no you don't. I may be bad at reading people but even I can tell that you don't feel anything for anyone outside of your associates (if even them). The guy was creepy, and I knew that if I got to know him a bit more I'd probably find him sickening (which ended up being how things turned out). It wasn't just his problem though: there were lots of people like him out here. Birabuto, if not just Sarasaland in general, was a twisting place: twisting minds and morals.

The one feeling I sensed overwhelmingly from S was mirth. Despite being in an apparently tough situation himself (having lost all of the…shipment…) he was finding a great humor in all of this. That was probably just who he was, I guessed. He was the kind of person that was always having a laugh. That could be a sign of psychopathy, but then again, maybe that was true happiness. It makes you wonder: if you could be eternally happy, without any sort of doubt for your entire life, would you be a psychotic lunatic? I can't say it's not tempting, but then again, I've already lived a kinda questionable life.

The rest of the conversation was S explaining the plan for getting the Starm back. He told me it didn't matter that I wasn't fast with my fighting anymore, what mattered was that I had the wits and even half the speed of someone who had ran in the streets for years as a child.

"It's all basic philosophy," S canted, drool flying every direction as he garbled the word 'philosophy'. "Get them while they're young- train them as children, and when they have grown, they'll be like beautiful flowers: blossoming into the very best."

I wanted to laugh. Me: a flower? I guess if I was playing along with S' dumb metaphor then I'd be a piranha plant: fast and deadly.

The entire operation, once we arrived at the CBC base, was planned to take only twenty minutes. It'd just be me, Eleme, and my new buddy Ardo. In and out, nighttime, twenty minutes, sounded good. Besides the fact that we were messing with the government I only had one problem with all of it: there was no way I'd be participating. Once I had my chance I'd be outta there. I'd head back home, grab my stuff, and escape somewhere to where S and the STA wouldn't be able to find me. It'd suck a lot leaving all of my friends, but hey, better than getting murdered by some thugs that felt betrayed.

After S was done explaining everything we were all forced to wait until nightfall. The operation absolutely had to be done that night, since according to S the shipment was going to be moved to a destruction facility in Muda the next morning. While we waited for nightfall S gave me back my kunais and I trained, hoping that I could polish up my skills at least a little bit. Even if I wasn't going to be carrying through the mission it'd be good training for when I'd be on the run.

Eleme trained too, with, as I was surprised to find out, a bow. As far as I'd known nyololins usually attacked by quick bites, with a few being able to breathe fire due to some complicated genetic reason I'm sure Zymech could explain way better than I could. Anyway, Eleme had this weird custom bow that she curled around and then pulled back with her tail. I had never seen anything like it. Unfortunately, I didn't get any chances to ask about it since Eleme and I were separated into different training rooms.

Evening fell and S bid us all adieu. Ardo led Eleme and I to a truck where we were told to sit in the back, a holding area completely cut off from the front. The two of us jumped in and Ardo took the wheel at the front, driving us somewhere into the desert. Eleme and I were left alone: the first time we had been left alone since last night when we'd both been too sleepy to really talk.

"So…" I began casually. "You can use a bow, huh?"

"Yes…"Eleme stared back at me and nodded, that sad look still stuck on her face. It was starting to depress me like crazy. We had never really been friends but seeing her cheerful face with that cute jutting tooth had usually made my week. I didn't blame her too much for this anymore- she just seemed to be in a despicable position.

Before we were to arrive at the base and before my goals had ended up getting changed I had been planning to tell Eleme about my plan to escape and to offer her to come with me. I'm still not sure why I didn't end up saying it here- perhaps some part of me was worried that she still felt loyal enough to the STA to tell Ardo once the truck stopped- but since I didn't say it here it ended up never being said, because the next thing that she told me ended up pushing me much further towards the place where I am now. Yeah, NOW now, where I'm tellin' all of this craziness from.

"S told me that some key members of Chai's bombing division are present at the location tonight. If we were found and they became involved…" Eleme blinked sadly. "I'd be the one best suited to…dealing with them."

No, Eleme had never been a killer, had she? I'm totally certain that she'd never killed anyone by that point in her life. Whatever her reasons were for having and being skilled with a custom bow, they had little or nothing to do with attacking other creatures. That's only something I'm thinking now, though- at that moment, back in the truck, my thoughts were focused entirely on Eleme's words, the subtext of her emotions flying over my head.

"Wait- did you say bombing division?" I started sweating. A chilly group composed of fear, apprehension, and tension descended upon me. "Chai's bombing division? The Fuses?" The Fuses was the group's nickname, although really the only name anyone mentioned them by anymore- even in official government reports. Their true name was some acronym similar to CBC that I can't really remember.

"Yeah…the Fuses, I guess." There must've been something visibly wrong with me because Eleme started to look worried. "Um…are you okay?"

The Fuses… They were suddenly this close? They were a group that normally stayed in Chai in order to defuse bomb threats (pun intended and named sometime before I had heard of them), but on very rare instances would travel out in order to deal with an explosive threat in some other important place in the kingdom. But- THEM coming HERE to BIRABUTO? It was absolutely unheard of…

"Lukas…?" Eleme asked worriedly. According to her I was absolutely shaking at this point. In rage? In shock? …Sadness? I can't remember- I was just thinking about the sudden chance I had.

By the time the truck had stopped and we had reached our destination I was calm and my mind was made up: I was going to participate in the mission. If the "package" we were retrieving did end up being Starm I'd destroy it somehow. I planned that I would do everything in my power to not become involved in one of those insanity-fueled tragedies. Thing was, I just couldn't bow out of this mission anymore.

When the truck stopped and we all got out it was glorious night time. The ground was lit by the moon and the stars, a sight that was incredibly hard to outdo. It was a sight I was very familiar with. On the nights when I wasn't captured by goons I'd take a run: about two miles a go. Running through the sandy streets of Shinar and outmaneuvering any stupid thieves, I'd look up at the stars and become aware of the feeling of life. The shining in the darkness, the constant strain of running, the feel of the air rushing past me- it was all like a waking dream. I remember my dreams often and they usually carry the theme of rushing, shining darkness. To run was to replicate that other world, and to fully feel this one.

I'd get plenty of running soon, though most of it would be inside a building. That building, of course, was the CBC base Eleme, Ardo, and I were currently peering at while hiding behind the truck we had come in, itself parked behind a small clump of trees. Everything else in our sight was desert, and at the farthest edges of this visible desert, the darkness of night finally collected into large enough clumps so-as to blind the sight of places beyond. …You get the feeling I really want to be a writer?

The CBC base was some four floors tall, pretty damn wide, and surrounded on all sides by a tall spiked fence. It was gonna be a real blast to get into- but it wasn't supposed to be me coming up with the plan for this mess anyway. After looking at the unpleasant metal fence with a feeling of mild humor and defeat I turned my gaze to Ardo, and gave him a kinda 'what now?' face. A raised eyebrow, questioning tilt of the head… That sort of thing.

Ardo stared back at me with humorless eyes and started heading for the fence. I shrugged and followed quickly after him. Eleme, toting her weird bow, slithered after. At the fence Ardo pulled from his pionpi cloak a long, strange rod that appeared to be composed of several red plants bound together into the general visual of a wand. He then pulled a lighter out, and set the plants on fire. The red flower almost exploded in his hands, but he remained perfectly calm and burned a circle through the metallic chained fence. After he was done he put out the fire by dropping the strange "wand" and then dumping two large handfuls of sand on it.

I had to ask what the heck that thing was at that point and he told me (with his usual flat mannerisms) that what he had used was a "fire flower wand"- a bundle of five fire flowers tied together tightly. Set on fire, they'd burn hot enough to burn through just about anything. Yeouch.

Fire flowers come from the island region of Sarasaland called Muda. Once you set them on fire they'll burn for a really long time. Some use them as campfires, but it's so hot around here, it's hardly necessary. I've heard it's a big import for the Mushroom Kingdom, though. That seems kinda dumb to me, however, since the Mushroom Kingdom is basically one giant forest.

Once we were on the inside of the fence Eleme split off from us. As some kind of punishment for her transgressions against the STA she was to be the "distraction" of the operation, rustling up some vague activity that would alert those inside of the base to the front side of the building, while Ardo and I broke into the back.

"This place ist not too advanced." Ardo chuckled in the darkness as we approached a small window. "The security ist laffable."

Now he was acting a bit more alive. Before I could ask how we planned to scale the building he had picked up a tremendous rock and was preparing to heave it through the window. With a tremendous shattering reminiscent and as unpleasant of the dropping of a good glass of Sarasan Red the window was completely destroyed and we had our entrance into the badly guarded building. Ardo smirked and leapt in, I took a last look behind us before leaping after him.

We landed in what appeared to be a kind of office room. The rock that Ardo had thrown had narrowly sailed over a desk and had crash landed right onto a flimsy chair, half crushing it and half knocking it over. The rock's small tremor had sent several nearby papers sailing through the air, and my uncertain landing on the desk caused several more to wiggle out from under me. I fell to my knees before I could slip and look like a complete idiot, but Ardo was already moving ahead anyway, peeking out from the door that led into our room.

I took a quick glance down at the papers that the rock and I had sent scattering down to the floor and saw exactly what I had been looking for: papers with the word 'Fuses' printed clearly into them. I scrambled to the floor and snatched up all of the papers and stuffed them messily behind my mask. I had hoped to find some kind of information on the bombers but not this much- this forbidden knowledge was so much more than I had thought there would be. Eleme had said that the Fuses were only visiting- there must have been some kind of file transfer as well.

With a small stack of papers shoved behind my face my head felt a little fuzzy, but other than that I was perfectly fine. I stumbled a little when I came out of the office room; Ardo gave me an odd look that inspired me to try to shake off the slight wooziness I was feeling. I mean, come on, I had stored more behind my mask before and had operated just fine.

The two of us continued up some nearby stairs, pausing every once in a while to make sure that no one else was nearby. Most of the building was unlit- it really _was _badly guarded- so this first part of the operation wasn't too difficult. We ended up going to the third floor and then heading towards the eastern side of the building. I wondered how Eleme was doing, alerting the guards to her presence and then trying to escape them. She was carrying that big clunky bow too- it seemed like it'd be pretty difficult. Heck, that must've occurred to S when he came up with this plan. What if he…? …No…

"Herr we are." Ardo stopped in front of a vaulted door, beside which was a numerical pad designed for passcode input. The burly pionpi paused for a second before inputting a series of numbers in a slow but exact mekabon-like way. Eight numbers later and the door slid open.

So, the STA must've had spies within the CBC. Just how much reach did they have? And just how shambled was the government to let something like this happen? Even Ardo, a low ranking member of the Starm carriers, had the information and power to do this. What kind of information was S and the even higher-ups of the STA privy to? Eld, it was frightening to think about. I gotta wonder how long they had known where I lived.

"This ist it!" Ardo said with a flash of eagerness in his voice. The inside of the storage room was lined with chipping white paint and the intense smell of mothballs. A strange place to store a product that was soon to be shipped out- but then, it wasn't actually in danger of being shipped anywhere. I guess in the end our thievery would end up saving a lot of lives. If I had known I wouldn't have felt so guilty as I grabbed one of the heavy sacks that Ardo pointed out and felt, from the outside, that it was without a doubt a bag of Starm.

There were five bags in all: I took one in each hand as did Ardo who also put one away under his cloak. I probably could've stored the last bag under my own cloak, though it would've slowed me considerably. Ardo was stronger than me (I ain't gonna deny it, plus, I'm about to tell you exactly how strong that crazy bastard is) and so he could afford to take the last bag. We were good to go at that point and ready to head back out into the hall to escape when the two mekabon that had been following us for some time stomped into the room.

Sorry to switch perspectives at this tense moment but I think it's worth it to focus on Eleme's side of all of this. This is basically an account of what she told me later (when I had asked). After splitting off from Ardo and I she had crawled along the side of the building while hiding in the darkest of shadows possible. As she got closer and closer to the front she had to crawl as low as she could to get under the windows from which shining light and drunken voices were coming from. The fact that all of the organic soldiers (er, non-robotic? Non-mekabon?) there were heavily drunk helped the proceeding events greatly.

The slurred voices coming from inside were troubling but unclear until we understood their later, horrifying context.

"Don' worry…" A loud pionpi said to someone else on the inside. "'T'll be easy…quick…I bet…I bet we won' even remember what happens…"

Someone else was whimpering, while other voices, generally neutral or drunkenly happy dribbled out.

When Eleme had reached the front side of the building she sought out something to shoot at with her bow. Far across from her and the front of the building were a line of Question Blocks, apparently to be stored in a nearby cart for the next day. It was the perfect target and distraction. Though it was dark, nyololins are known to be able to see in the dark, so Eleme was able to aim for the block closest to the door and let fire without a problem. Her first shot hit perfectly, activating the Block and ejecting its contents: a bundle of fire flowers.

Question Blocks were designed about two centuries ago by a famous scientist. You can store whatever you want in them (as long as it'll fit) and then with applied pressure release the contents within. You could do all sorts of useful things with them, even store liquids and gasses.

Through either a design flaw or choice (Zymech didn't know and if she didn't after tinkering with them for so long I'm sure no one did) Question Blocks made a loud and signature noise when being opened. The more stuff that's inside when the Block opens the louder the noise it creates. The Block that Eleme shot was about half full which was still enough to create a noise that reached the inside of the front of the building and capture the attention of the Chai Bio Cell members reveling inside. A small flood of goombos (smaller but faster goombas), tokotokos, pionpis, and koopas came flooding outside.

As the drunks began to stagger out to investigate the cause of the Blocks opening, Eleme lured them further and further away from the building by firing off more arrows at farther Blocks. Through a kind of drunk mob psychology the group was too invested in their hunt to actually stop and find the rather obvious arrows sticking out or lying by the opened Blocks. It wasn't too long though before the small crowd of idiots following the opening boxes were finally alerted to the true culprit behind the Blocks opening when Eleme fired a little too close to the crowd. The arrow hit a block right in front of a crooked koopa who must've felt the rush of air in front of his face quite clearly.

"There's a…there's someone firin' at us!" The koopa shouted and fell back, barely caught by some of his cohorts. "Over…over there!" He pointed vaguely over in Eleme's direction. It was too dark for them to see her so they all began to just approach her direction in a blobby formation.

"Wait! Wait a second!" One of the more sober members of the Cell yelled to everyone. "It's a…it's a nyololin!" Eleme wasn't sure then how they knew; my best guess is that the sound of her slipping through the sand was somewhat recognizable.

"A nyololololololo…that's one of the…the targets, right?" A Goombo stuttered.

"Yah…and they SLOW!" A jittery tokotoko growled. "Less kill one early! Practice!"

Despite their inebriation and general failure at guarding their base, the Cell members now had the drive to rush towards Eleme. Stifling a small shriek, she started crawling as fast as she could in the opposite direction, hastily debating with herself whether to shoot arrows back at them or not. If it had been me it woulda been a no-brainer, but Eleme still didn't want to hurt anyone. I wanna make some kind of sarcastic observation about how a Starm dealer didn't want to physically hurt anyone, but I guess it's pretty likely that she never dealt with the stuff, only working with the Redroll she sold me. I'll have to ask when I get the chance- well, after she's feeling better.

My best guess chronologically is that this would be a good time to switch back to Ardo and me facing the two mekabons that decided to barge into our little raid. Now, mekabons are a bit larger than pionpis and…people such as myself, an' so they're always a bit unsettling to face down- or up, I should say.

I described it earlier but mekabons aren't like other species. They…er…well, this is kind of hard to describe. They've got metal skin like bob-ombs in the southeastern kingdoms, but unlike bob-ombs they're kind of…unintelligent? I mean, they're very straightforward, most of them work under the government and do whatever they're told to…oh, and also, they don't speak. I've seen some write, but never speak. Zymech had some kind of term for what they were, same as bob-ombs: robots.

Well, I wasn't remembering or thinkin' much about them when they first burst in onto us. One mekabon swiveled its head to me and began to bombinate loudly- ah sorry, there's the writer in me, using bigger words than necessary. To rephrase: The mekabon began buzzing like an oversized brain-damaged hornet. The other mekabon headed for Ardo, I guess one gift for each of us. We dropped the heavy loot we were carrying to prepare for the onslaught.

'Alright, let's not screw up horribly this time' I was thinkin' to myself. I leaped forward and did a little roll, actually catching the dagger-like weapons that fell from my eyes this time. Excelente. I had a bit of previous experience dealing with mekabons so I knew exactly what to do first: slice off their arms. The arms, unlike the other parts of a mekabon, are rubbery, and therefore actually possible to stab through with a sharp blade. They're also what a mekabon will attack you with first.

Just as I predicted, the mekabon turned left to where I had landed and started extending its tentacle-like arms to pick me up. Like I was havin' any of that- I danced out of the way, and, almost tripping, jammed both of my kunai where the rubber of the arm started to disappear into the metal of the rest of the mekabon. The stab was deep enough to cut halfway through the arm, destroying the wiry nerves inside and bending the arm irreparably. Any pity I felt for these tools of the government were silenced by my past memories of the robotic creatures.

My enemy's left arm was now useless so I considered the stabbing a victory despite not cutting entirely through. At least I was able to actually catch and hold my weapons now. That was a step up, wasn't it?

As I leapt near the door of the storage room I was able to get a sight of Ardo's side of things: he had grabbed his mekabon in a bear-hug and had already _ripped one of its arms off._ He was now in the process of repeating the act on the creature's head. Okay- I take it back a bit, I had to feel pity for that one.

My mekabon droned loudly as if to try to get my attention. The thing was wobbling around, its head vibrating unpleasantly. I remembered what was happening just in time to dive for the floor and crash into a shelf. The mekabon's head went flying off from its body, speeding out and smashing into the side of the door before flying back and landing on its torso.

Okay- time to come clean- I had never actually killed a mekabon before. My experiences with removing their arms was in cases where I was defending myself. Such instances were quickly followed by my quick escape from the scene. In this case there wasn't much of a chance of that- the mekabon had now moved to block the doorway, and was humming even louder now. I didn't like this one bit.

Ardo and his mekabon crashed to the floor as the pionpi's wrestling match jumped to a new level of ferocity. Grabbing roughly at his opponents head, Ardo renewed his attempts to remove the offending limb, now using the strategy of twisting instead of merely pulling.

"Crazy son of a birdo." I muttered under my breath. Alright, so I'd need my own strategy to kill- or at least render unconscious my incredibly sturdy match.

"Mekabons are different from…"

A familiar voice crept into my memory. Seeing a mekabon so close up was reminding me of something…

"…are different from most life forms. They're very similar to machinery. The kind of stuff I like to work with."

Good ol' Z. But…why was this memory so fuzzy? Oh yeah…

"Hey? Lukas? Hello? Hello? …Why do I even bother explaining stuff to you?"

"What? Sorry Z, I kinda zoned out there…were you saying something important? Ouch- ouch! I'm kidding! I'm kidding! I'm listening Z!"

"You're the one who wanted to know more about mekabons, Lukas. I don't know why you'd ask and then not even…"

"Z, I was 100% kidding. C'mon, look me in the eyes, I'm telling the truth, it was a joke."

"…Y'know, perhaps it'd be easier to tell if you had eyes."

"Z, you're killin' me!"

…And so on, until Z calmed down and I was acting a little less like a dick. She took mechanical science seriously, no doubt about it.

"Mekabon are very different from other species. Rather than cells, their bodies are based simply in electricity and the machinations that result from their electrical processes. Because of that, they're also known as robots."

I had asked Z for information on mekabons specifically because I wanted to know ways to kill them. This had been a little after I met her when there were rumors flying around about a wild gang of mekabons lurking around Shinar's streets at night- a rumor that had ended up being baseless.

"Mekabon have four main wiring systems, somewhat similar to our organ systems, but much simpler. They have a digestive system that processes oil, a structural system that provides support to keep their bodies standing, a movement system that allows them to control themselves (including a radio system that allows simplistic wireless control of the head), and a sort-of nervous system that binds it all together. Unlike other species, the 'brain' or central nervous system of a mekabon is not located in its detachable head but rather inside the neck directly below…"

Thank you for the flashback Z! Sorry to cut you off but I've got a pissed-off robot to deal with… That's right, robot. Didn't Z say something like robots weren't really alive…? It'd make my merciless attack a bit easier to swallow, anyway.

I rolled over to the still open door of the storage room and jumped about wildly, getting the mekabon to swivel its head and focus on me once again. Its head shook like it was about to pop off- perfect. I dropped to the ground just as easily as before as the mekabon shot its head off at me again. When the head had passed through the doorway I kicked the door shut victoriously.

The resulting sound of the head hopelessly bouncing around in the hallway gave me the final bit of adrenaline that I had needed. I jumped at the confused body, both of my arms up behind my head, and then brought down the two kunai I gripped straight into the mass of wired circuits lining the uncovered inside of the torso. Holding on tightly to the daggers, I kicked off from the giant metal body, ripping out the kunai from deep within and sending a scattering of metal parts showering into the air.

I didn't exactly land gracefully but I think by that point I had already pulled off an appropriate amount of style. Laying sideways against the door half of a second later I watched as the mekabon made one final buzz before toppling over. A second after mine fell Ardo succeeded in ripping out the mass of wiring hidden beneath the mekabon whose head he had eventually ripped off, successfully shutting down his own opponent.

"Awesome work!" I said a bit too cheerfully, still feeling buzzed from my victory.

"WE MAST MOVE!" Ardo shouted back, grabbing his three bags of the product we had come for.

"Ah, right!" I kicked aside with some difficulty the headless mekabon and grabbed the two bags of Starm underneath. Yeah, they were totally Starm, but that wasn't really something I was thinking about at the time- I just wanted to complete the mission and get out alive.

We burst out of the storage room and into the hallway where of course four more mekabon were making their way down. I think they started moving faster when they noticed one of their comrades deactivated heads on the floor. Ardo and I ran back for the stairs we had come up.

"What's with the attack?" I asked Ardo. "Did Eleme…?" Did she do her part?

"Security measures. Artomatic."

Down the stairs, then a bit down the hall, and finally back into the office room- son of a birdo: a koopa and a goombo were inspecting the damage inside, including the shattered window.

"CHARGE!" Ardo roared, bursting forward. He slammed against the koopa so roughly that when they hit the wall the entire room shook, and then he kicked the goombo straight out of the window we were heading for. Ardo jumped through and I followed after with some shock. This guy was doing the strongest attacks I had ever seen anyone without a weapon do.

Passing the possibly dead goombo we ran for the hole in the fence Ardo had created earlier.

"Guys!" It was Eleme, slithering as fast as she could from closely behind us. Oh, right- while being followed by a mob of CBC and possibly Fuse members.

As I crawled hastily through the fence the four mekabon that had been chasing us emerged from the building, now flashing spotlights out from their bodies and making even louder and even more unpleasant bombinations. Their lights found us nearly eight seconds before we jumped into the truck, with Ardo taking the wheel again and Eleme and I leaping into the back. There were some vague shouts from our pursuers but I wasn't listening. As the back door slammed shut and the now comforting sound of the truck's motor began to run, the cool darkness washed a great relief over me. I had escaped with the fruits of knowledge hidden safely behind my mask, my only real purpose of carrying out the mission intact.

Somehow we had all made it out of the caper alive and for the most part, unharmed.

…But, not unknown.

* * *

**Author's Notes: +Pionpis have ****german accents. **

**+You may have noticed that koopas are one of the species that make up the members of the CBC, while the others are all completely Sarasaland species: goombos, tokotokos, and pionpis. There are koopas in Super Mario Land (the only game to actually portray Sarasaland) but they are portrayed as weird creatures that blow up once Mario jumps on them. For this story the koopas that live in Sarasaland are just regular koopas- there may be some grimdark explanation I'll toss out later for the koopas encountered in Super Mario Land. Anyway, thanks for reading!**


	4. Chapter Four: Return To The Ground

Chapter Four: Return To The Ground

I spose' that if this was a short story, I could stop here and leave the rest of my sometimes hectic life up to your elaborate imagination. After everything I've read I've found that all of the best stories, whether they are long or short, do not cut off at too clean of a point and will usually leave a number of questions unanswered. As a kid I found that sort of thing annoying, or as my more childish self would have said, 'stupid'. I couldn't appreciate ambiguity back then— I felt like life already had enough of it.

And I was right in one way; life does have a lot of ambiguity. But those stories that do replicate that dimension of existence usually end up being the deepest and most wonderful. Consider my story ending here: escaping the Chai Bio Cell compound with the loot, I've gotten my victory, but I still have the rest of my life ahead of me. What happens after that? It's up to your interpretation— did S fulfill his deal with me? Did I live happily ever after with my newfound riches? Or did I end up destroying the very thing I had helped to steal, and then ran for the rest of my life from the enraged Starm Transportation Agency?

Well, fortunately or unfortunately, the story doesn't end here. I've already hinted at way too much to just stop here— that'd be bad writing. Plot elements have been introduced that have not served any real purpose, no real character arcs have occurred yet, etc, etc. Perhaps if this was cleaned up and several of the elements had been simply ignored, I could've gotten away with stopping here and dealing with my literal army of problems that I face now, in the real present. But no— I promised a full account and I will deliver a full account.

As long as I live.

But in the past: there I am sitting in a bumpy and racing truck that is heading back to the STA base that I had been taken to two days ago. I feel accomplished for two reasons: I completed S' forced mission and should now be free to go, AND I managed to grab some papers on the Fuses, Chai's bombing division. That's one of those unfulfilled plot elements— but also something I'd rather not talk about. I'm recording it here because it happened, and though I try to present this as a fictional, literary story, it all really did happen. As far as I remember.

…Maybe I should be considering that in real life a lot of plot elements go unfulfilled.

"Lukas…your…face…" Eleme said somewhat awkwardly. She pointed at me with the end of her tail. "There's…paper sticking out of it."

Well, thinking in a literary sense or not, I hoped that the papers I had found in the CBC base would lead to an important moment in the plot.

I reached up slowly and felt— yup, there was definitely a corner of paper sticking out of one of my eyeholes. I sighed, a little embarrassed, and pushed the edge of printed paper back behind my tired mask. What a mess… I guess that my head had been so swimmingly dizzy that I hadn't even felt the paper from within it trying to escape.

"Ha ha…" I laughed hollowly in order to push past the moment. I hoped that Eleme didn't ask about the papers, because then I'd have to tell her that it was none of her business, and I really didn't want to be nasty to her. 'Please don't ask', my mind whispered to no one…

She didn't ask, fortunately. After a few moments of silence, which was becoming a signature of my time with Eleme (a signature that was driving me crazy), I tried starting a new conversation.

"Great job, huh?" I stretched a bit and grinned. "We kicked ass. We made a great team back there." Even Ardo, who I had been pretty angry at before.

"Yeah, I guess." Eleme said a bit happily, but I could tell that her tone was drifting off again by the end of the sentence. She still wasn't satisfied, she was still innately miserable about something else. I decided that I'd had enough.

"Hey. C'mon. What's the problem? I'm not mad. I don't feel betrayed by you turning me in. It's what you had to do to survive— something that everyone in Sarasaland knows about." I sought a way to add the icing on the explanatory cake. "…Hell, I even had some fun in this operation." That was an understatement. I didn't want to admit it at the time, but our heist had been the most fun I had had since I had 'straightened up'. I really felt alive again. "If you're sad because you had to turn me in…you can just stop frowning and cheer up."

Eleme was quiet for a moment. I couldn't really see her face in the darkness, so I wasn't able to gauge her reaction at all until she spoke again.

"I'm…I'm happy…" Why was she lying?

"No you're not." I pushed. "I know what you're like when you're happy. You always used to be smiling. Heck, I didn't know if you _could _even frown before all of this." I couldn't see her face in the darkness but I could sense it. "Stop feeling guilty. I'm…" What I finished with was half a lie and half a truth. I guess I wasn't sure yet. "I'm happy that all of this happened."

"I don't…! No, that's not what I mean! I do feel guilty still, but it's more complicated than that, Lukas!" Now she sounded a bit angry. "This mission hasn't accomplished anything for me!"

An unpleasant aura crept into the back of the truck, like the emergence of an evil mummy from some long buried tomb.

"…What do you mean?" I already had a bad idea of what she meant.

"They aren't going to let me go, Lukas. I stole from them and they'll never forgive it. Once you're out of here I'm done for." She sighed. "I'm dangerous to the future of the STA."

"What, just because you stole a bit of money from them?! Why can't they just let you go?"

"I've been with this group for a long time. I know a lot of secrets." Eleme shook her head. "They can never risk letting me out."

Never? So they had sent her on this mission just so they could wring some last usage out of her before an execution? What the hell…!

"Eleme, _fuck _them!" I said with sudden venom in my voice. "When this truck stops you can fire an arrow straight into Ardo's giant face and then we'll make our escape."

"No, I can't do that." Her tone here was more depressed than usual.

"Why the hell not?!"

"The STA is… like my family."

…

…Her family? Was she really that alone? Enough that these Starm-dealing scumbags were her family? Everyone has to have a "family" to survive in Sarasaland (of course, not your "real" family. You know what they say: "Everyone's an orphan in Birabuto."), but how did someone like Eleme end up in this nasty group? Did she have some secret side I didn't know about? Sure, everyone who survives in poverty in this region is a thug of some kind, but there's a difference between a thug and a quasi-sadistic criminal. From what I'd seen, the STA was composed only by the latter.

Keep in mind, though, that that was just how I felt then. I only knew three of the STA members at that time (Eleme, Ardo, and S), and while there was definitely something wrong with S, it was a bit biased of me to say the same of Ardo, my opinion being mostly fueled by his previous attacks on me.

"Eleme, forget them. If they're trying to kill you, they aren't your damn family." Stop frowning! I wanted to scream. "Listen, how about this: when the truck stops, I'll knock Ardo unconscious, and we hijack this truck."

The thought of money was gone from my mind. I felt a need on top of a strange determination to help my nyololin accomplice. It was becoming more and more important to not leave her to die. Now, the 20,000 coin question was this: Was all of this effort just for another ally I was making, or a new friend? God I sound cheesy, but I can tell you from where I am now that it was the latter.

"Do you know how to drive?" Eleme asked.

Well…

We shared another moment of terrible silence. But unbeknownst to me, Eleme spent that secretly short time thinking.

"…It's okay. I know how to." It looked like Eleme approved of my plan.

"So…?" I asked encouragingly.

"If you're only knocking Ardo out…yeah, I'll do it." She still sounded hesitant, though. I can't imagine that she hadn't thought of the possibility of escape before, but maybe it had just seemed hopeless trying to escape alone.

"Great." I nodded. "Once we make it back to Shinar, I have a small, but cozy place you can hide out at."

"I'm not staying in your apartment." Eleme said quickly. "And we're not going to Shinar. That'll be the first place S will look."

"Yeah… First, I wasn't suggesting you stay in my apartment, my friend Z has a shack she lives in that shouldn't be too bad for you to lodge at. Second, I agree that S will be coming after us, but we'll need to time to make plans before we run out into the wilderness… at least a day or two." Also, I needed to grab that dangerous book I was stashing under my bed, along with what little money I had.

"Okay." Eleme approved. She still wasn't happy, though. I imagine all of that stuff with her family was making her feel horrible. It really made me wonder about the dynamics in the STA organization.

Outside the truck's engine grew quieter and quieter until the vehicle stopped completely. I prepared myself and moved over to the door, equipping a kunai in each hand. I didn't need to hide them in my head— that was a technique for surprise. The surprise here would already be coming from me immediately jumping out of the truck and attacking Ardo's unsuspecting head.

A small part of me was sure that Ardo knew what we were about to do. Maybe he could hear everything we said as we sat in the back of the truck. Maybe he'd just be on extra guard because he might think that I was still angry about getting kidnapped.

I was just being paranoid, however. Really, Ardo didn't have much of a reason to suspect me since we'd just finished our mission together and it'd make sense that I'd be happily waiting for my money. I'm sure that he wasn't suspecting much of anything when he opened the door and found me leaping down upon him. His eyes certainly widened. Sorry about that, Ardo. Consider it a matter of me making us even for your attack earlier.

I slammed the blunt side of my right kunai against the right side of Ardo's head while bringing the left weapon down on top of his head. He was one of those pionpi who didn't wear one of those stupid hats so I didn't have to worry about driving my knockout force through a layer of silk.

My left kunai struck true on Ardo's head— my right was not so lucky. …What? It's not that surprising. I was still rusty then…and I still am now. I missed the side of his head and hit his neck instead, which only created a nasty bruise. The force of the left hit seemed to be enough, though, since Ardo fell backwards without a word, like a kicked-over scarecrow.

"C'mon!" I called back to Eleme. She curled out of her bow and scurried out of the back of the truck, heading for the driver's side of the vehicle. The sun was just rising over the eastern horizon, having already bathed some of the eastern kingdoms of the Continent an hour or more ago. What a perfect time for our grand getaway. In a literary sense anyway. The dawn of a new life, y'know? Get it?

I scurried around the side of the truck and tackled at the passenger's side seat. I turned and was about to shut the truck door when Ardo's incredibly pissed-off figure grabbed it before I could. He dragged himself up, the faint appearance of a nasty bump beginning to form on the left side of his slumping head. To no real surprise, a single smack on the head from me was not enough to knock the giant pionpi out.

"Vhat the hell are you doing?!" Ardo roared angrily.

"Start driving, El!" I said hastily to Eleme, accidently establishing the nickname I would use for her following this incident. She stopped gaping at Ardo and started the truck's engine with the press of a button. She grabbed the wheel with a quick flick of her tail and started looking out ahead at the desert we had just emerged from: the desert that completely surrounded us.

"Eleme, vhat are you doing?!" Ardo repeated his base question.

"Sorry, Ardo. Say sorry to everyone for me." The nyololin responded a bit dejectedly, although with a fresh sprinkling of determination. I would've cheered, if I wasn't being attacked by a hulking pionpi who had ripped a mekabon's head off.

"Uh…excuse me, please." What else was I supposed to say in this situation? I definitely hadn't prepared something snappy. I leaned over a bit and started kicking at Ardo's head, trying to aim for the painful looking bump I had created earlier. This worked remarkably well for about three seconds before Ardo grabbed my kicking left leg. Whoops.

"You matherfacker!" Ardo snarled at me. I wasn't sure if that was his accent slurring his words or his rage.

The engine's rumbling grew louder and louder until the truck began to move. Ardo stayed still where he was on the ground, half of his body leaning into the inside of the truck. I was starting to get dragged out, and the only thing my panicking self could think to do was grab the right edge of the steering wheel with my left hand. This in turn caused the kunai that I had been holding to fall into the foot-rest or whatever those areas are called. My right arm still flailed, gripping the other dagger.

Ardo did not let go. Instead he started walking and then running along the outside of the truck.

"Uh, Lukas…" Eleme started, worriedly. The truck, which had started approaching around twenty miles per hour, began to slow down like an old man losing his drive for life.

"Keep driving faster!" I half-shouted at Eleme as I tried to kick Ardo off. He was still half-way out. If I could get his legs dragging against the ground at a really fast speed…

"S vill not be pleased!" Ardo shouted as he managed to get one foot safely into the space between the seat and the edge of the truck door. Oh shit.

"Do you think we give a damn about S?" I asked unbelievably. I tried to bring the kunai I still gripped in my right hand down on Ardo's head again but he was easily able to dodge it now that he had a stable foot in the door.

"Do you know vhat you are evan doing?!" Ardo shouted back. He was pulling way too hard— much more of this and I was going to have to grip the steering wheel with both hands and leave myself basically undefended.

Meanwhile the truck was going faster and faster. Ardo was just getting his other leg into the door as we started to get around forty miles per hour. I hadn't yet actually seen what things looked like outside of a vehicle when one was moving before, so the sight of the desert blasting by us was quite amazing, even as I saw it while struggling with a crazed drug dealer.

"Stop the veehickull, Eleme!" Ardo now had both of his feet safely inside the truck. This was presumably why he made the mistake of letting go of my feet.

"I can't, Ard." Eleme said resolvedly. She was using a nickname for this thug— I was stunned. "I'm sorry for what I did, but I don't want to die."

No longer as threatened with being dragged out of the truck, my hands were free to stab at Ardo's face. It was a bit more violent than attacking just the top of his head, but I was desperate to get this guy away from us and out of the truck. He was already reaching one hand for my head, presumably to throw me out into the desert, if not strangle me.

"Die?!" Ardo responded to Eleme before one of my kunai arced straight for his nose. He was fast as hell, though, and he stopped my attack with a beefy hand before it hit its randomly chosen target. "Eleme," Ardo growled as he ripped the kunai from my fingers, "S is…"

Things were not going well at all. Ardo was clearly stronger than me and he could stop or dodge my kunai as easy as he liked. As my old battle instincts flashed through my head, a desperate plan appeared as the best possible scenario. Ardo was big and bulky, but he wasn't hanging onto anything. If I used what power I had combined with the added weight of the papers in my head—

I drew back for half of a second to gain some momentum and then head-butted into Ardo's unguarded chest. He made a vague OOMPH sound and waved his hands out wildly into the air before flying out into the fifty mile-per-hour landscape, taking my right kunai with him. That was a sacrifice I'd have to make— there was no way we were going back for it.

As I thought of Ardo crashing into the sand I told myself sarcastically that I'd have to apologize later. Ironically, however, it did end up happening. Sorry again, dude, but you were way too damn stubborn.

"YEAH!" I fist-pumped victoriously as I was treated to the image of Ardo rolling wildly in the dust behind us (I feel bad about it now though. Really). I leaned over in a shortly precarious moment and finally grabbed the door, shutting it nice and safely.

I was all victory at the moment. Eleme, however, was worried.

"Do you think he's okay?" She asked both quietly and nervously. With my desperate grip off of the wheel she was able to start driving in the right direction for Shinar.

"I hope not!" I cheered senselessly, before remembering the situation. "Oh, crap. Sorry…"

"It's okay." Eleme sighed glumly. "I guess I'd feel the same way if I was in your position."

And there we were again, in another moment of awkward silence. These only seemed to come around when I was with Eleme. What gives? Was it just her sadness?

We passed several caravans heading to and from Shinar on our way to the city. Every time we came near one Eleme seemed to become rather tense, but she recovered soon after the passing vehicle was left in the distance. Trucks and motor vehicles were rare in Birabuto but that shouldn't be something that someone driving one would need to worry about. The only people who drove big trucks were government workers and gang members from a strong group. Those kind of people didn't have to worry about small-time merchants. So why was she nervous? I found out the reason shortly.

"Home sweet home," I muttered under my breath at the sight of the city of sand, the ground from which I had proverbially risen. We were heading straight for the eastern side where the good ol' slums were, and where Z's shack could be found. I was about to start directing Eleme as-to how to get the shack when the truck began to slow down and ultimately stopped right near the most outlier series of buildings in the city.

"Yo, what are you doing?" I asked, gesturing to the slums ahead with my remaining kunai. I had switched it to my right hand. "It's another two miles to Z's place."

"I can't drive too well in a city." Eleme explained a bit bashfully. "Besides, I'm sure the STA will be on the lookout for this thing. We'll just have to crawl…and er, walk."

That was a really good point. But wait—

"What do you mean you can't drive?" I asked.

"Well, it's easy enough in the desert when there's nothing to hit!" Eleme explained defensively. "I mean, I know how to basically operate a vehicle, but beyond that…I haven't really learned yet. Staying on the basic outline of the road and not hitting those caravans back there was just about the best I can do."

If she had been more open at that time she probably would've explained as well that she really didn't like driving at all. Learning to drive had been part of her training as a member of the STA, but in general, she didn't like working with machines.

"Okay, I understand." I shrugged. Leaving the truck here as an indicator for the STA wouldn't be a problem anyway, as someone from one of the nearby houses was sure to steal it soon. I was honestly surprised it hadn't happened already.

We grabbed the bags of Starm before we left, Eleme balancing one bag on her back and myself heaving two of the heavy bags. I wasn't sure what to do with the stuff: I had decided at that point that I'd just drop it off at Z's place along with Eleme and then try to figure something out before our coming escape from Shinar.

So, carrying three bags of barely disguised drugs, we began our walk…and er, crawl through the slums of Shinar. I wasn't too worried about being mugged, since my reputation still held a little strength, and Eleme had made sure to grab her bow before leaving the truck. I had been a bit nervous about me and Eleme sticking out with that custom weapon on her back, but she wouldn't leave it no matter how far I tried to argue. Oh well. It was morning anyway, so most people would either be asleep or working.

Still, we moved fast. I did not want S and his cronies to catch up to us.

We arrived at Z's tin house without a problem. Eleme gave it an appraising look that suggested a slight negativity.

"Is…this place made of tin?" She asked. "Shouldn't it be really hot in there?"

"Z likes it hot," I laughed shortly. It was the truth.

I knocked on the door and waited. Just like usual, it was a slightly long ten seconds before my favorite light-orange yoshi opened the door. She looked at me with her usual flat look and then noticed Eleme who was 'standing' awkwardly off to the side.

"What's up?" She raised an eyebrow. Her nonchalance couldn't hide her obvious interest in what Eleme was doing there.

"Z! Hey! I want to talk. Can we come in?" I wrangled my hands together like someone skeevy trying to make a suspicious deal. I didn't notice— that's just how Z told me it looked later. It was an entirely unconscious movement.

Immediately following my request Z didn't say anything. She instead turned to look at Eleme with one of her most piercing looks, out of the _many_ she had mastered. I flinched without even being the focus.

I could hear Eleme squirming in the sand.

"You're not going to cause me any trouble, are you?" Z asked directly. She continued glaring down right into Eleme's soul.

"…No…" Eleme squeaked.

Z continued to glare at Eleme. After another ten seconds, she opened the door further from being a quarter open to being 3/4ths open.

"Come on in," She said with a mocking host voice.

"Thanks a million," I said gratefully, with the unsubtle undertone swearing that there wouldn't be any problems.

Z's place hadn't changed much from when I had last been there. All of the usual inventing junk was all around the place and her 'inventing table' (that's just what I like to call it; she gets hilariously pissed when I do) was still placed prominently in the middle of the metallic shrine. There was something missing, however: that strange hunk of metal that I had thought was a mekabon. My only thought at the time was that it was a great shame, since it'd probably have become something really interesting.

"Um…mmmm…" Eleme slithered around nervously before finally settling on staying at the back of the shack, near Z's tiny and messy bed.

Z sat down on her wheeled stool and rolled back against the side of the wall. She crossed both her arms and her legs: not a good sign.

"Alright Lukas, what's up?" Z asked tightly.

"Well," I began, not really sure how to explain it. "I've run into a bit of trouble. A, er, big bit of trouble."

"No kiddin'," Z was back to glaring at Eleme. "I'm betting it involves here."

"I'm sorry, I haven't properly introduced myself, have I?" Eleme entered the conversation with a sudden thrust of something. "My name is Eleme."

"I know," Z replied flatly. "We've met."

"Oh…oh!" Eleme clearly couldn't remember, but it seemed she was trying to in order to make a good impression. "Right…you're Z. Sorry, I've had a, um, bad week."

They had met? I couldn't tell if Z was lying. I had definitely mentioned Eleme as my Redroll dealer a while ago to Z, so she knew Eleme's name no matter what. But had they actually met? Eleme didn't seem to know Z. But then, maybe she had a bad memory. I mean, heck, sometimes I do. Or, perhaps, they had just met once, and the time had been a lot more memorable for Z than for Eleme. But even as I'm jumpin' through all these possibilities, I'm probably just thinkin' about this way too hard.

"Don't call me Z," Z said tightly. "That's what my friends call me. You can call me Zymech."

I hope you're not hating on Z right now. As I've explained earlier, she's had a hard life: kicked out of her home kingdom, lost her father, then had her mother killed by some maniac terrorists. Sure I'm an orphan too, but at least my mom disappeared long before I had a memory. My dad… Well, as I've read—and basically felt—when dads die, it's different. It's a different kind of sadness. Plus, at least I know exactly which fuckers killed my father. Z's got no idea who exactly killed her mother or father (if her dad's dead).

Now maybe you want to say: hey, you're all a bunch of miserable orphans there (something I've gotten used to, see my mostly cheery demeanor?). And that is completely true. And so, I wouldn't let someone I barely knew into my home, just as Z is doing here. Anyone can be a thief. Anyone can be a government agent. Once you get to know someone you can start to feel if they're a threat to you or not. If you choose to just base everything off of a momentary first impression, you _will _die. And I don't wanna sound mean, but I'll just be shaking my head at your idiocy.

Of course, it'd be nice if you didn't have to worry about that sort of thing. A place where you could walk out your door without weapons hidden in your clothes and behind your face, and where you could just talk to people you hardly knew without being threatened by constant death. I suppose the Mushroom Kingdom is like that, thanks to Them, and maybe the Beanbean Kingdom as well. It's something I should probably ask John about.

The only worlds I really understand are the ones in my books. Doesn't that sound pathetic?

"Oh… _Zymech_, I apologize," Eleme hid the lower part of her face with her tail in a small sign of embarrassment.

"Don't worry about it. Well, then again, you shouldn't have to worry about it for too long." Z's famous smirk unrolled across her face.

"Ah, about that…" I tapped my fingers together nervously, still trying to figure out how to present this. Ah— fuck it. I had dragged this out for too long. "Eleme needs a place to stay."

"Yeah? And where's that?" Z's smirk was getting wider and wider. I wanted to laugh along with her, but this was serious.

"Please Z? It's only for a day or two. Two at most. No— it'll probably be a day. Maybe just a few hours." I begged.

"Wait. Are you saying _here_?" Z pointed at the ground sarcastically.

"You can trust her Z. I swear on it." Did I really have that much of a basis to say that when I did? I guess not… But I could say for sure _now_ that I trust her. Maybe we could just pretend that I have future-sight (ha ha…god I wish I did). "Let her stay today and by tonight we'll be gone."

"What? What'dya mean you'll be gone tonight?" This now caught Z's interest beyond a chance for a joke. She uncrossed her legs and arms.

"I'm in big trouble Z. We're in big trouble. We gotta get outta town." Outta Shinar, outta sight— though I had no idea I'd be heading to a whole nother' kingdom.

"You're yankin' my chain, Luke." She shook her head. "C'mon now." Her speech was getting more and more colorful, a sign that she was getting nervous.

"I'm serious Z, I might be leaving for good." All because of Eleme, whether we ended up at the same place or not. The thought of standing my ground and fighting back crossed my mind, but I pushed the idea away quickly. "Please, just let Eleme stay here, I need to get stuff from my apartment."

Z wanted to talk further but I didn't have time. The hysteria of having a powerful organized crime group coming after me was charging me up to escape as quickly as possible. I unceremoniously dropped the bags of Starm onto the floor of the shack and then bowed slightly to Z as some early thanks. Eleme would have to try to explain things from there.

I then ran out the door and into the streets. Z called something after me but the door slamming shut silenced her. Sorry for the thousandth time Z— I knew I'd have to apologize to you again somehow.

I usually run at night, but as long as the streets are basically empty, I'm fine with the day too. It's just not as beautiful.

I burst into the apartment and flew up the flights of stairs to my crumpled room door. I frantically fished the key that S had so generously not confiscated out of my robe pocket and slammed it into the door lock. Twist— and—

I burst into the room and almost ran right into John who was sitting calmly and collectedly on my awkwardly placed bed. Classic fuckin' John.

"There you are." He chastised lightly. "The Organization has surprised me: it needs you early."

* * *

**Author's Notes: If you've noticed the theme behind the chapter names, don't worry too much about it. It's mostly something I'm doing for fun, and if it ever matters inside of the actual story, it won't for a very long time. **

**Next Time: A new perspective. Also: murder. Thanks for reading!**


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